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U.S. to Resume Airlift of Injured Haitians

WASHINGTON — The White House said Sunday that it would resume a United States military airlift of Haitians seriously injured in the Jan. 12 earthquake, reversing a five-day suspension that doctors worried would strand patients with devastating burns, head and spinal cord trauma, amputations and other wounds.

The flights were halted on Wednesday after Florida officials complained that their hospitals were overwhelmed and that they needed a plan for reimbursement for the care they were providing. Federal and state officials worked through the weekend to address concerns enough to restart the medical evacuations.

“Having received assurances that additional capacity exists both here and among our international partners, we determined that we can resume these critical flights,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.

With an estimated 200,000 people in Haiti dead and a similar number injured, the halt to the evacuations quickly evolved into a roiling controversy distracting from the enormous efforts made by the United States to help. Aid groups complained that the suspension was putting lives at risk, while officials from Florida to Washington provided conflicting explanations and disclaimed responsibility for the decision.

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida wrote to the Obama administration last week warning that “Florida’s health care system is quickly reaching saturation” and requesting that the National Disaster Medical System be activated to help with the cost. The military suspended the flights, saying that Florida hospitals had stopped accepting patients.

But Mr. Crist adamantly denied that and, as Florida newspapers dubbed it the “airlift scandal,” said he never wanted to stop taking the injured; he only wanted more help.

The White House, acutely aware of the lessons from Hurricane Katrina, stepped in to resolve the problem. Thomas E. Donilon, the president’s deputy national security adviser, led an effort all weekend to address the capacity issue; among other things, the government persuaded other Caribbean nations to help with urgent cases.

Mr. Vietor said the issue of who would pay for treating evacuated Haitians was not the reason for the suspension of the flights, only the concern about whether Florida hospitals could handle the additional patients.

“This wasn’t about cost,” he said. The matter of reimbursement raised by Florida officials is a separate concern, he added, saying, “we’re having ongoing conversations about that issue.”

Until their suspension, the flights had transported hundreds of gravely injured patients, all but a handful to Florida. David Halstead, an official with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, who is coordinating the state’s rescue effort for earthquake victims, said by telephone that Florida has treated 530 Haitian patients and that 190 remained in its hospitals.

Photo

Dr. Phuoc Le, of Boston, top right, and a medevac pilot, transferred 5-year-old Betina Joseph, below left, and a 14-month-old with pneumonia to a private jet for their evacuation to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia on Sunday, skirting a bureaucratic logjam.Credit
Andres Leighton/Associated Press

“The rest of the states combined have accepted four patients, and it’s not that other states aren’t willing,” he said. “We can certainly accept patients, but there has to be a plan.”

In Port-au-Prince, doctors welcomed the news of resumed airlifts, which they called vital for some of their neediest patients.

“Keeping them in this environment, it’s like you’re sentencing them to a life of misery,” said Dr. Brian Crawford, a volunteer with the International Medical Corps, a relief and development group in Santa Monica, Calif.

He said he hoped that many states, not just Florida, would find a way to share the burden of Haiti’s broken bodies and minds.

He said he had one particular patient in mind: an 11-year-old girl who suffered a severe spinal fracture during the earthquake. She ended up a paraplegic, he said, and a few days ago Dr. Crawford transferred her from the General Hospital here to a charity hospital outside the city, which he hoped would lead to a flight out.

“This could be an open window for her,” he said, referring to the airlifts. “Hopefully it will be.”

The White House said patients were being identified for transfer and evaluated by doctors to ensure that they can handle the flights. In addition, the White House said that the government was arranging for in-flight care for children in need, and that Florida was designating which hospitals could receive the influx of patients. Mr. Vietor said the flights would probably evacuate “a couple hundred of the most severely injured patients.”

Ultimately, though, evacuations are not a long-term solution to the problem. Dr. Barth A. Green, co-founder of Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit group that has been evacuating patients, said the American government has decided to create “a world-class trauma hospital” at the Port-au-Prince airport along with private relief groups. At the same time, a 250-bed hospital for post-operative care and rehabilitation will be completed, and after that a second 250-bed facility for rehabilitation.

“Things are the way they should be again,” he said. “We’re in sync. We are going to show Haiti what we are capable of.”

Confusion disrupted a smaller humanitarian effort involving Haitian children. A Baptist church in Idaho, whose members were among 10 people detained for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti, said Sunday that the team was “falsely arrested” and that the church was trying “to clear up the misunderstanding.”

A statement on the Web site of the church, Central Valley Baptist in Meridian, Idaho, said the team traveled to Haiti to rescue children from orphanages destroyed in the quake. The children, the statement said, were headed for an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. Haitian officials detained the church members out of concern the children might be susceptible to trafficking and said some of the children might have parents.

A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Pledging Care, U.S. Resumes Haitian Airlift. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe